Friday, January 27, 2012

Designing for Social Presence - Motivating online students

It is actually quite interesting to think about motivation for online students because in many ways studying online requires a higher level of motivation and a higher level of responsibility.

The following slideshow explains what motivates people to engage in online activities. The most surprising factor for me was to find out that people get involved in online activities to avoid doing work. :)

The following article from the University of Newcastle was really useful as I am really interested in tutoring online. It explains how to motivate students so that they complete an online course.

One of the pieces of advice on the site is especially of interest to me as once I experienced a problem with student involvement in an online course I was running: "You may find that students who are disengaged and who do not have a strong social connection with their fellow peers find it easier to withdraw from a course. Thus employ strategies that encourage students to interact with one another."